Leaders want a new world order

Sunday

Jan 2, 2005 at 12:01 AM

G. Wayne Crocker Cottondale

Dear Editor: Dick Cheney and several others have claimed that President Bush now has a mandate to implement his agenda for our nation's future. Many, if not most of us, who voted Republican in the election did not do so to give Bush a blank check. The administration's vision for a badly misnamed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) was barely explained to voters.

This proposed expansion of NAFTA is bad for America. Not only would it accelerate our industrial decline and loss of jobs but it will lead toward the surrender of our national sovereignty.

Our congressional representatives, both Democrats and Republicans, have a duty to carefully consider each program proposed by the president. The Republicans in Congress should stop blindly supporting the president. Liberalism is still liberalism, even when the president joins with Ted Kennedy to federalize education.

The mess in Iraq should be cleaned up quickly to the extent possible and our troops brought home. If the Iraqi people want democracy, let them fight for it. We have no moral right to try to impose it upon them.

We should pray for our president, but also realize that every decision he makes is not necessarily directed by God. Let's face the fact that the human powers behind the throne in Washington are more interested in creating a new world order than in protecting our liberties and the lives of our finest young people in uniform.